Six Months in a Leaky Boat
by MopCat
Summary: "Regulus is two months away from seventeen when he plans his own death." Remus/Regulus


"_I'm too good for that, there's a mind under this hat._"

- Laura Marling.

Regulus is nearly sorted into Ravenclaw: "_You'll be happiest there, a dreamer I suppose. Don't all dreamers want to fly?_" He doesn't, because his brother is loud and wild, and he's seen the bruises left by his mother's hand.

Instead, he's proclaimed Slytherin in a voice that had sounded so quiet in his head.

Remus is in second year.

/\/\/\/\/\/

When Regulus is seven, he draws his first picture of something important. There's a grey haired cat that should be mottled orange and table that has three legs instead of four on each side. Essentially though, it's a picture of his brother.

Later, Regulus will have a thousand and one pages of notebook hidden at the bottom of his trunk. Each will hold a picture, a frame of life and sketched in ink and pen.

There will ever be only two other pictures of Sirius he will draw.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Regulus has been a Slytherin for time measured in a welcoming feast:

"Nice to see you're still listening to mother."

Sirius' shoes are neater than his own. Polished, tied and looped through all holes. His hands are at his sides and grey eyes show none of the emotion they need.

"I can't choose where I'm sorted Sirius." But he can, he did and it goes round and round to the point he believes himself hearing another's voice: _I did, I did, I did_.

"I hope you're happy Reg," It sounds fond. It sounds wrong from Sirius' voice. It leaves him alert and feeling wild. Like he's dragged back to reality from a dream he rather live.

There's another boy at his brother's shoulder: wide-eyed and curious and hidden.

This is the first time Regulus meets Remus.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Regulus is thirteen when there are too many half-bloods and people attending from lines that don't deserve to be taught.

There's two, five, seven and finally a muggle-born sorted into Slytherin.

Regulus sketches his profile in the back of a leather bound notebook.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

There is a first kiss. Pushed up against a cold, outside, castle wall and he's the one holding the boy's position against him. The air is cold, frost clinging to his eyelashes and breath hitching in throats unable to be hidden by white clouds. Regulus holds himself up with gloved fingers and a leg that's stable against rock. Their lips are numb, teeth caught and tongues that are too hot: the kiss is not executed well.

But there's a feeling that hitches his heart in his chest and a flutter in his mind that leaves him simple.

Regulus is fifteen: cold, calculating, eyes that hide an artist and fifteen.

Remus is sixteen.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Remus' voice is something that hurts. His voice pitches and swoons; cracks over history notes. His accent is as soft as Sirius', and Regulus wonders whether this is the place he is born in his tone, or if it's something learnt.

When Remus has spoken himself hoarse, during a night where Sirius, Potter and Pettigrew are cleaning kitchen floors, Regulus watches him fall asleep in an upholstered library chair.

There are scars running length ways across his face, like an animal has swiped his paw across the boy's face. On the left plain of his head, there is a scar that cuts too close to his eye, _I was jumping on my ma's bed, came off the side and hit the corner of her dressing table. Nearly lost the vision in my eye_, rendering his left eye a lighter shade than the right.

He looks younger and Regulus brings him alive on paper.

/\/\/\/\/\/

People figure it out before he does:

"You shouldn't be hanging around Lupin anymore."

And Regulus doesn't know how Severus has found him, or doesn't acknowledge the tone in which his voice is set, but wonders who else, how many people, and _who else_ knows.

They're standing against castle walls, calculating.

"Like you and Evans, Severus?" and pushes himself forward.

_Never take confrontation sitting down Regulus, even if means showing no fear on your face._

/\/\/\/\/\/\

There's a moment, somewhere within Remus' sixth year and sex happens faster then Regulus believes it should.

He is drawing - quick, hurried and the vacant expressions his father has moulded over Christmas come alive under his pen. They're not overly beautiful pictures, not in a sense that locks out all emotion, but Orion no longer can call his wand his own, and Regulus is understanding of pressure. He should be undertaking potions homework, or undertaking something that means more to the way the world stands, but he is here. Drawing, because without a pen under his hand, he is a dreamer and dreamers lose control too easily. Not that he is scared, but controlling reality is expected of him.

Then there are footsteps at the door and Regulus assumes them belonging to Severus. Instead, "I didn't know you could draw," is whispered and Regulus looks up sharply, emotions hidden: the way he is taught.

Remus is standing in front of him, not close but neither far. He looks broken, in a way Regulus will not and cannot ever show, and broken in a sense that makes him want to thrust his notebook into his bag a prey tell of homework he has left undone. He doesn't though, because, goddamn, he has pride in a sense that will not get him killed.

This is how sex happens - between then, and Regulus believes it going too quick. He has a cunning sense of pride though, so he leaves with his notebook tucked under his arm. Leaves refusing to show limp in his gait and leaves, leaving Remus broken in twice as many parts.

\/\/\/\/\/\/

There's a single tattoo in the end, at the age of sixteen, drawn on with the tip of a wand.

\/\/\/\/\/

In fifth year, he stops playing Quidditch.

The last game he plays is against Gryffindor: wild, fast and unwatchable. Already people are starting to cheer for the other team despite what colours they wear. It wasn't always that way, but war is reaching their ears and people are scared.

Regulus spends majority of his time in the air trying to keep his mind on the game. He should be watching for the snitch, he should be listening to the score and better yet, he should know the score without having to be told.

When Potter, who has spent the game at his shoulder looking for the snitch, shoots of like he can see something to follow and Sirius sends a bludger brushing past his ear, Regulus pretends not to notice

/\/\/\/\/

Regulus is two months away from seventeen when he plans his own death.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

At the age of twelve, Regulus is reading within the library, notes pilled in his head and no mention of paper by his side. He is twelve, when he closes a leather bound book describing the use of Australian flowers in potions and opens one other out lining horcruxes. He is twelve when he devours this information like he does all other.

He is twelve when he grasps understanding on the magic that will end his life.

\/\/\/\/\/\/

"I can't say I'm overly fond of Astronomy." This isn't how their first fight starts, but it might be the one that ends in Regulus' blackened eye.

"It's not that hard Remus, here, give it to me."

"No, I don't see the point of stars," he's quiet now, "Sometimes I think the world would be better without the night sky."

Regulus' hands are tight on cover binding, on a textbook that's secondhand from secondhand. The page is open onto constellations: Andromeda in the left hand corner.

"That's the thing though, isn't it Remus? What about Sirius? The dog star: brightest in the sky. You don't think he's a waste of time, do you."

Remus punches him.

/\/\/\/\/\/

There's a problem with Regulus' stupid, stupid, heartbeat. The way it quickens and jumps every second note it shouldn't, when Regulus is not meant to fall in love and when he has more important things that should be on his mind.

He can school his face impassive, imposing and Black, but there's a problem with his stupid, stupid heart.

/\/\/\/\/\/

After Remus is finished school, and after Regulus has pulled-out, pulled-out because no one is staying and he has things to do he's been assigned, Regulus forgets to draw.

He is running, running when there are muggles in front of him and all he wants to do is stop. "Kill them," rings in his ears and he's heard that voice before, but knows it's in his head.

He's running, running when they surround him and bellow _get him _after he screeches, "Avada Kedavra". Running, running when he continues moving and they take him by the legs.

…

When he is opening his eyes again, Sirius is at his arm (holding him down, despite appearances) and dry retching over his left shoulder. _The same shoulder he broke climbing the apple tree in the back garden_, Regulus notices, _we weren't a day over ten_.

And there are Sirius' words - circling, circling above their heads, "I killed him, I killed my brother. And because he had Voldemort's fucking lighthouse beacon tattooed onto his arm." Sirius is never good with words, he burns too bright, and sentence structures are left behind.

Remus though, Remus who has two-thousand more scars than he should have, and who Regulus knows is a werewolf, now, is looking at him. Left eye still lighter than the other and hands too large for a neat set of handwriting. Remus, who is looking at him, then looking at Sirius and the two boys behind his shoulders - none of who are watching, because times are black, and Sirius is forever a Black.

"You fucking fool," because Remus is the one that teaches Sirius and Potter to swear and then he is kissing him.

It hurts.

There is released pressure on his arm when Severus drives him backwards by his robe collar, holding Remus with a wand point thrust in front of both their bodies, like Remus isn't going to fight.

They disapparate.

/\/\/\/\/

Regulus is eighteen when he dies.


End file.
